The N100 is preattentive and involved in perception because its amplitude is strongly dependent upon such things as the rise time of the onset of a sound,[10] its loudness,[11]interstimulus interval with other sounds,[12] and the comparative frequency of a sound as its amplitude increases in proportion to how much a sound differs in frequency from a preceding one.[13]Neuromagnetic research has linked it further to perception by finding that the auditory cortex has a tonotopic organization to N100.[14] However, it also shows a link to a person's arousal[15] and selective attention.[16] N100 is decreased when a person controls the creation of auditory stimuli,[17] such as their own voice.[18]

The N100 is often known as the "auditory N100" because it is elicited by perception of auditory stimuli. Specifically, it has been found to be sensitive to things such as the predictability of an auditory stimulus, and special features of speech sounds such as voice onset time.

The N100 depends upon unpredictability of stimulus: it is weaker when stimuli are repetitive, and stronger when they are random. When subjects are allowed to control stimuli, using a switch, the N100 may decrease.[17] This effect has been linked to intelligence, as the N100 attenuation for self-controlled stimuli occurs the most strongly (i.e., the N100 shrinks the most) in individuals who are also evaluated as having high intelligence. Indeed, researchers have found that in those with Down syndrome "the amplitude of the self-evoked response actually exceeded that of the machine-evoked potential".[17] Being warned about an upcoming stimulus also reduces its N100.[22]

The amplitude of N100 shows refractoriness upon repetition of a stimulus; in other words, it decreases at first upon repeated presentations of the stimulus, but after a short period of silence it returns to its previous level.[9] Paradoxically, at short repetition the second N100 is enhanced both for sound[23] and somatosensory stimuli.[6]

The difference between many consonants is their voice onset time (VOT), the interval between consonant release (onset) and the start of rhythmic vocal cord vibrations in the vowel. The voiced stop consonants /b/, /d/ and /g/ have a short VOT, and unvoiced stop consonants /p/, /t/ and /k/ long VOTs. The N100 plays a role in recognizing the difference and categorizing these sounds: speech stimuli with a short 0 to +30 ms voice onset time evoke a single N100 response but those with a longer (+30 ms and longer) evoked two N100 peaks and these are linked to the consonant release and vocal cord vibration onset.[25][26]

Traditionally, 50 to 150 ms evoked potentials were considered too short to be influenced by top-down influences from the prefrontal cortex. However, it is now known that sensory input is processed by the occipital cortex by 56 ms and this is communicated to the dorsolateral frontal cortex where it arrives by 80 ms.[27] Research also finds that the modulation effects upon N100 are affected by prefrontal cortex lesions.[28] These higher-level areas create the attentive, repetition, and arousal modulations upon the sensory area processing reflected in N100.[29]

Another top-down influence upon N100 has been suggested to be efference copies from a person's intended movements so that the stimulation that results from them are not processed.[30] A person's own voice produces a reduced N100[18] as does the effect of a self-initiated compared to externally created perturbation upon balance.[31]

The N100 is a slow-developing evoked potential. From one to four years of age, a positive evoked potential, P100, is the predominant peak.[32] Older children start to develop a negative evoked potential at 200 ms that dominates evoked potentials until adolescence;[33] this potential is identical to the adult N100 in scalp topography and elicitation, but with a much later onset. The magnetic M100 (measured by MEG rather than EEG is, likewise, less robust in children than in adults.[34] An adult-like N100-P200 complex only develops after 10 years of age.[35]

The various types of N100 mature at different times. Their maturation also varies with the side of the brain: N100a in the left hemisphere is mature before three years of age but this does not happen in the right hemisphere until seven or eight years of age.[33]

The N100 may be used to test for abnormalities in the auditory system where verbal or behavioral responses cannot be used,[36] such with individuals in coma; in such cases, it can help predict the probability of recovery.[37][38] Another application is in assessing the optimal level of sedation in intensive critical care.[39]

High density mapping of the location of the generators of M100 is being researched as a means of presurgical neuromapping needed for neurosurgery.[40]

Many cognitive or other mental impairments are associated with changes in the N100 response, including the following:

The MMN, unlike N100, may be elicited by stimulus omissions (i.e., not hearing a stimulus when you expect to hear one).[48]

Though this suggests that they are separate processes, arguments have been made that this is not necessarily so and that they are created by the "relative activation of multiple cortical areas contributing to both of these 'components'".[49]

Pauline A. Davis at Harvard University first recorded the wave peak now identified with N100.[50] The present use of the N1 to describe this peak originates in 1966[51] and N100 later in the mid 1970s.[52] The origin of the wave for a long time was unknown and only linked to the auditory cortex in 1970.[9][53]

Due to magnetoencephalography, research is increasingly done upon M100, the magnetic counterpart of the electroencephalographic N100. Unlike electrical fields which face the high resistance of the skull and generate secondary or volume currents, magnetic fields which are orthogonal to them have a homogeneous permeability through the skull. This enables the location of sources generating fields that are tangent to the head surface with an accuracy of a few millimeters.[54] New techniques, such as event-related beam-forming with magnetoencephalography, allow sufficiently accurate location of M100 sources to be clinically useful for preparing surgery upon the brain.[40]